With the development of wireless communications and networks, user equipment and electronic devices and/or portable electronic devices, such as cellular phones or smartphones, are now in widespread use. Consumers may enjoy the full convenience of these high technology products almost anytime and anywhere.
For example, there are millions of smartphone applications that are available on the market. However, some of these applications may cause poor network performance, such as signaling storm, capacity outage, etc., and deteriorate customer experience, e.g. they can drain the battery unnecessarily or cause unexpected data usage.
Therefore, network operators, smartphone vendors and application developers are providing applications testing services in order to understand application behaviors and key performances. For example, application testing tools have been developed. These tools can test Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as traffic pattern, power consumption, functionality, security, stability, etc.
One of the challenges of the testing process is power consumption. During the testing process, the battery of the electronic device is required to be removed from the battery cavity of the electronic device. This is so because one needs to access the testing ports of the electronic device, if any, or the connectors for the battery. As a result of removing the battery, during the testing process, the electronic device has no power supplied by the original battery. However, the electronic device needs to be powered during the testing process.
Current solutions for testing smartphones use, for example, intrusive ways of soldering cables directly into the battery connectors in the smartphone body. These cables are then connected to a power supply to provide the electrical power. If one wishes to measure the power consumption of a smartphone running a particular application, a digital multi-meter can be used.
However, the current solutions have some issues and limitations. First, they require skills to solder cables into smartphones. The high temperature, and short circuits which are caused by poor contact, for example, can potentially damage the smartphones. Secondly, due to the difference in soldering skills of various engineers and technicians, and due to different cables and solder used, the electrical characteristics of the measurement setup are different. As such, the test results may not be consistent or even be invalid. Thirdly, manually soldering cables to battery contacts is time consuming and offers low efficiency.
Therefore, there is a need to improve the solutions for testing portable electronic devices such as smartphones.